California Romantic and Resourceful; : a plea for the collection, preservation and diffusion of information relating to Pacific coast history eBook

California Romantic and Resourceful

One of the most important acts of the Grand Parlor
of the Native Sons of the Golden West which met at
Lake Tahoe in 1910 was the appropriation of approximately
fifteen hundred dollars for the creation of a traveling
fellowship in Pacific Coast history at the State University.
In pursuance of the resolution adopted, a committee
of five was appointed by the head of the order to
confer with the authorities of the university in the
matter of this fellowship. The university authorities
were duly notified, both of the appropriation for the
creation of the fellowship and of the appointment
of the committee, and the plan was put into practical
operation. In 1911 this action was reaffirmed,
and a resident fellowship was also created, making
an appropriation of three thousand dollars, which
has been repeated each year since. Henry Morse
Stephens, Sather Professor of History, and Herbert
E. Bolton, Professor of American History, and their
able assistants in the history department of the university
have hailed with delight this public-spirited movement
on the part of that organization.

The object and design of these fellowships is to aid
in the collection, preservation and publication of
information and material relating to the history of
the Pacific Coast. Archives at Queretaro and Mexico
City, in Mexico, at Seville, Simancas and Madrid,
in Spain, and in Paris, London and St. Petersburg
are veritable treasure mines of information concerning
our early Pacific Coast history, and the correspondence
of many an old family and the living memory of many
an individual pioneer can still furnish priceless
records of a later period. Professor Stephens
has elaborated a practical scheme for making available
all these sources of historical information through
the providence of these fellowships, as far as they
reach.

The perpetuation of these traditions, the preservation
of this history, is of the highest importance.
Five years ago, at Monterey, upon the celebration
of the anniversary of Admission Day, I took occasion
to urge this view, and I have not ceased to urge it
ever since. If we take any pride in our State,
if the tendrils of affection sink into the soil where
our fathers wrought, and where we ourselves abide and
shall leave sons and daughters after us, if we know
and feel any appreciation of local color, or take
any interest in the drama of life that is being enacted
on these Western shores, then the preservation of every
shred of it is of vital importance to us — at
least as Californians.

The early history of this coast came as an offshoot
of a civilization whose antiquity was already respectable.
“A hundred years before John Smith saw the spot
on which was planted Jamestown,” says Hubert
H. Bancroft, “thousands from Spain had crossed
the high seas, achieving mighty conquests, seizing
large portions of the two Americas and placing under
tribute their peoples.”